Strand, is by no means, and at no time, great. Was there not rather more bustle than ordinary in the street? Hark! There was a buzz, a hum beneath his window-a muffled sound of footsteps, succeeded by a kind of semi-silence—a congregational hush. What could it be? What did it mean? He would look out and satisfy himself as to the cause of this unusual stir. The sight that met his eyes! "Ha! ha! ha!" For, as he shot from the window, his first impulse was to indulge (and he did so, as we have seen,) in a burst of vociferous laughter, which, however, after a prolonged gratification of it, partook considerably more of hysteria than of merriment. His advertisement had been answered by the myriad. There they were their name being Legion an array of candidates for the beneficial advantages propounded in his printed proposition all eager for bed, board, and stipend-panting for the place-agog for "a certainty." Never was such a posse of widows seen in this country since the battle of Hastings. There they stood - compact, unflinching, massive, conglomerated-Westminster widows. "lone women from Isling"comfortable bodies" from the city - Radcliff Highway ton relicts! 66 Now, the Lord have mercy on me!" cried the astounded Gipps. "What human being, I should be glad to ask, could have foreseen this?" Mr. Gipps, I have before said, was a reserved, shy man. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that this portentous spectacle struck a panic into him that nearly divested him of the power of motion or of thought. The idea of selection from among so awful a multitude was preposterous - - He could not do it. They must be got awayordered to move on-beseeched to disperse, at all events. And now he heard Betty in the passage on the double-quick move, proceeding towards the door, whilst uprose the voice of Nat Salter,-a voice which he seemed striving to overtake as he blunderingly scrambled up-stairs: "I say, Mr. Gipps-master! did you send for this 'ere blessed lot o' women, as is blocking up the blessed street at our door? The cabmen can't get along, and the waterman's crying out shame on 'em." "I did not-no, I have no hesitation in saying I did not. Go down stairs, that's a good boy." "But why are ye a shaking in that 'ere manner, sir?" asked Nat. "Bother the whole boiling on 'em, I says." "Go down stairs-now, that's a good lad, go down, and tell Betty Betty was already in conference elsewhere. The door had been opened, and a sturdy foot planted in the passage. "Mr. Gipps," remonstrated a stout and well-to-do-looking woman of a certain age, "Mr. Gipps, whose name is on the door, wants a widow lady. Let me in. First come, first served, I say; and I was the first here," and she made a vigorous forward movement. "Wants a widow? - not he," returned Betty. "Stuff!-We want no widows here, nor wives either. Come, get away, all of ye -do." So saying, Betty put forth an adequate amount of physical power, and ejected the stout lady from the premises. A wild objurgatory shout rent the welkin. Gipps, who had taken his station on the first-floor landing, and was leaning on the balustrade, heard the inhuman outcry, and cramming his fingers into his ears, bethought him of the back-garret. There was a chimney in it. At that moment, he wished he had been made of soluble material, that he might have melted utterly away. "A respectable widow, who has seen better days, and has come a long distance, and won't take a denial," he ejaculated. "She'll have me up before Sir Frederick for a hoax." "They're a thickenin'," cried Nat Salter, running out of the area, and bawling upwards, in a tone between exultation and amazement. "Blest, Mr. Gipps, if all the iron railings ar'n't got a chin between 'em. Well, this bangs all I ever see. Such lots o' women I never did see!" Another assault upon the knocker. The door was at length opened. The power of association is mysterious. How was it (but so it was) that two lines of a popular melody should have entered the head of Gipps at so trying a moment: He at once gave himself up for lost. Somebody was rushing upstairs. "God bless my soul, Mr. Gipps!" cried Mr. Metcalfe, his opposite neighbour, hurrying into the room wiping his forehead, "what is the meaning of all this? Why is this mob of women, chiefly widows, at your door? " Gipps laid hands upon the newspaper, and indenting his finger into the advertisement, thrust the journal into the face of his new companion. "Look there!" "An advertisement for a widow lady!" cried Metcalfe. 66 'Well, my good sir, why don't you choose one with all despatch? These ladies are an obstruction to the passengers. Be quick!" "Mr. Metcalfe-my worthy neighbour," said Gipps solemnly, "I could no more see these widow ladies seriatim in this parlour, than I could select the best wife out of the eleven thousand virgins. Are there many still left? Are they not going? " "Going?" cried Metcalfe, glancing out of the window; "they never will go. Here's an ocean of 'em, and little knots standing at the corners of streets looking on, waiting for their turn." Gipps groaned; but a thought of a sudden scintillated from his brain, and then played lambently about it. "I'll tell 'em I've got one." "Do," said Metcalfe. Gipps proceeded to the window, and raised the sash silently. He opened his mouth for speech, but the appalling vision before him was too much. There he stood, uttering no sound, but making the most outrageous variations of aspect. "No-d-it, that's too bad," cried a ruffian, who had observed Gipps, (for the male sex had long ago joined the group:) "here's a gentleman been advertising for a wife, and when they 've all come to be picked and chose, if he ain't poking his fun at 'em, I'm blowed!" A burst of derisive laughter in grand chorus followed this sally. "It's of no use they don't hear me," said Gipps, appealing to -- "I tell you wit' en la Jonger. Come from the war är im L posing yourself. I'll be han I Get à a Vw the other side of the street that hasn't half-a-sze teas trist not of it; mỗ very extraordinary; there's a decent strmime if widows among them, too. Now don't you think Gms' am that gentemin by the arm, "if I can disperse this em 1 stal do you a good turn?-Shan't I be entitled to you?* "You will, indeed," returned G- bading 13 his spread hands. “I shall almost be ready to worSDIE TOL "I'll do it then," said Metcalfe. I wonder what my sister Revell thinks of this!” "Ah! what, indeed!" cried Gipps away with them-all of them!" Gu, then, at once, and When Metcalfe was gone, Gipps threw himself upon his face on the sofa, and plunged his head under one of the custries CHAPTER IV. The Dispersion. The Widow, and Wind ca Metcalfe, having undertaken the desirable business volunteered by him, proceeded to go through with it in a business-like manner By dint of coaxing some and terrifying others; by examining with the argumentative, explaining to the obtuse, and condoling with the disappointed, he succeeded in his mission. In half an hour the whole had disappeared. All this while Gipps's head was under the sofa cushion. Metcalfe did not return to restore confidence to him. He went forthwith to his own house, at the door of which, having knocked, he indulged in the following brief soliloquy. "How precious absurd all this! That fellow Gipps is well to do in the world, and bears a respectable character. If he knew how long I'd had my eye upon him! He advertised for a widow-but he wants a wife; and it shan't be my fault if he doesn't get one, before any of us get much older." In the evening, when Gipps's self-possession returned, Mr. Metcalfe was announced-and a lady. "I have brought my sister;-Mrs. Revell,-Mr. Gipps," introducing them: " she has come with me to condole with you on your unlooked for levee this morning." "I am most happy-this is indeed an unexpected pleasure," stammered Gipps, a blush overspreading his face and temples, so extraordinarily fiery as almost to threaten the ignition of his partially grey hair. Pray, madam, be good enough to take this seat." A short silence ensued. Mrs. Revell did not speak: Gipps did not know what to say. In the mean while, Mr. Metcalfe had been elevating his chin towards the pictures that ornamented the walls. "Um”—“yes”"good very sweet"-" breadth ”—“ fine tone"-" splendid colouring," and the like. "By the way," said he, turning about suddenly, "what a fool I am. I have forgotten a particular business that of all things ought to be attended to. Will you excuse me, friend Gipps? I shall not be gone very long. I leave a good substitute, that's one comfort. Talk to my sister, will you? Louisa, do pay particular attention, I beg of you, to Gipps's facetious stories. Our friend is full of anecdote!" Now, was there ever such a wanton, such an unfounded assertion? However, Gipps did not much care. He did not know how it was, but he was not at all nervous this evening. He had had too many widows about him to-day to be afraid of one, and she, certainly, a very charming woman. He had no idea before that she was so handsome. This comes of looking through the wretched medium of sheet glass. How-very-very ridiculous-the concourse of this morning, my dear madam," observed Gipps. "It is all your own fault," returned Mrs. Revell. "You single gentlemen, who are bent upon being old bachelors, deserve it all." 66 "Well but, my dear lady," said Gipps, we can't do without housekeepers; we must have our little comforts-our-" 66 Well, sir, and why don't you marry, and get them," innocently inquired Mrs. Revell. Gipps looked as though he had never thought of that before, and then looked at Mrs. Revell, and was surprised to perceive that she blushed. He gathered fresh courage. have me? :: But, my dear Mrs. Revell, who'd I shall not relate how, before Metcalfe returned, Gipps, who had suddenly acquired the art of wooing, pestered Mrs. Revell till she was fain to answer" I would," to Gipps's question. Suffice it to say, he had put his arm round the reasonably small waist of Mrs. Revell, and was just about to seal the bargain upon her lips, when (such things will happen) Metcalfe entered the room. “Fie! fie!” said he, "that is very naughty, Gipps. Well, you wanted a widow this morning, and hav'n't you got one?" “I have,” said Gipps; " that is to say, I hope I have. But you must stay supper. I'll bring out the wine.” It was not very long after this that Gipps's friend Simpson received an elegantly folded note, enclosing two cards united by satin ribands: “Mr. Samuel Gipps;" "Mrs. Samuel Gipps." Underneath the former, “Come and take a cup of hyson poured out by the delicate hand of my housekeeper." EPISTLE TO FANNY ELSSLER, AT NEW YORK, FROM "THE OMNIBUS," IN LONDON. SWEET Fanny! the Bus is half frantic But grant us the slightest concession, Shall our bouquets in thunder-showers cover, In the Bus, grown as dull as a hearse, Applauding, for better, for worse, Those terrible long legs of COPERE'S ! You pretend to prefer Massachusetts, Are as patient as sawyers at top e'er are; Or prepare to be hissed from the OPERA! C. D. |